We opened Odd and the Frost Giants on Tuesday morning with a great show in front of a wonderful crowd from Briscoe Jr. High. This morning we had our first elementary-age audience – 150 or so first graders. Definitely a different energy with that age. Various jokes and moments in the show work differently. The older crowds love it when the Frost Giant, disguised as a beautiful maid, tricks Loki into stealing Mjolnir for him. The younger group loved it when Thor declares that the animals couldn’t have been arguing “because we can’t talk! . . . Oops.” Every audience so far has loved the puppets. You can hear the excitement when they appear at curtain call. (Each puppet gets a quick bow, followed by a bow from the actor.) We’re looking forward to the first all-ages show tomorrow afternoon.

If you’re in the Houston area, there are still tickets available for all three public performances. You can get them on Stages’ website. If Houston’s a bit too far away, please feel free to mention the show to your local young audiences theatre companies. I’d love to see this script done other places. And, in the meantime, here’s a gallery of photos from dress rehearsal and one from after today’s performance, when a young audience member got to chat a bit with the bear.